Guideposts

1 min read

During the Christmas season, I hang a marquee sign across our carport that lights up the word PEACE. This year when I turned it on, it read ACE. I have another sign next to our fireplace that reads JOY, but the J was out, leaving us with only OY. So

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. PSALM 25:4 (NIV) GOD WILL ALWAYS lead you on the right path. If you have wavered from His instructions, ask for forgiveness, take His hand and get back on track. When temptations threaten your faith jour

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”). MATTHEW 1:23 (NIV) GOD CAN TRANSFORM an ordinary moment into an awakening experience. A beautiful sunrise, a perfectly timed yet unplanne

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

God of the years that lie behind us,Lord of the years that stretch before,Weaver of all the ties that bind us,Keeper and King of the open door:Grant us hope and a courage glowingWhite and pure as the stars above;Grant us faith in a full stream flowin

Guideposts

1 min read

There’s a long history of miraculous healings at Holy Hill, 30 miles outside Milwaukee. According to legend, a partially paralyzed hermit named François Soubrio came to the site in the mid-1800s and prayed for healing. He fell asleep and woke—cured.

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. ACTS 16:25 (NIV) IT’S EASY TO be happy when everything is going your way, but how you respond to dark and difficult times is a test

JOY Magazine

2 min read

As we power into 2022, I know that a lot of you, like me, are thinking about 2021 – what worked, what failed, and what we would like to do better. I remember when I was a skinny young boy, I would cry and moan to my parents because I just wanted to b

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

“WALK THIS WAY,” THE BUTLER said. Then he proceeded to limp his way noisily across a foyer. The visitor who followed did the same, mimicking his limp/stomp/limp/stomp, hunched over, listing-to-one-side posture. A classic comedic moment. Most credit t

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. ISAIAH 40:29 (NLT) A FARMER WHO lives just a stretch down the road from me recently painted the word HOPE on his barn and every time I pass by, it lifts my spirits. With the coronavirus pand

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. JOHN 16:22 (NIV) THIS MORNING, I missed my sister, Maria, who has been in heaven for more than a decade now. I was thinking a

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this. PSALM 37:5 (NIV) SOMETIMES GOD’S HAND is evident, but do you trust the daily guidance of the unseen hand of God in your life? When you feel alone and become filled with doubt, pray. Beli

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” LUKE 12:15 (ESV) LIFE ISN’T A competition. The more you recognize that your journey is a beautiful

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

WHEN MY CHILDREN WERE IN college and weary of school, I’d remind them to “finish strong.” The temptation to coast arose in the final semester. I understood their struggle, because years ago I went through the same impulse. I didn’t think I could face

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ROMANS 8:26 (NIV) NINETEEN YEARS AGO we experienced the heart-wrenching tragedy of September 11th. How comforting to know that God was with u

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

JESUS COMPLETELY PROVIDES FOR OUR needs. All of them. I stumbled over a reminder of that when rushing across campus during a conference. The terrain made the trek a challenge for my heart, lungs, legs, and the blister forming on my toe. As I pulled m

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

WHEN I WAS A YOUNG mother, there was always too much to do and too little time in which to do it. Between working, cleaning the house, running errands, cooking, doing the laundry, taking the children to their activities, and shopping, as well as bein

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

THE MONTH OF OCTOBER IS bittersweet for me. It is sweet because my mother was born in October. October is bitter because Ray, my godson, died in a one-car accident on the first day of the month. He was twenty-five years old and served our city as a f

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” LUKE 22:41-42 (NIV) HAVE YOU EVER wanted something so desperately you prayed for a specifi

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. ISAIAH 35:8 (NIV) HOW DO YOU feel as you move toward being more

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers. PROVERBS: 11:14 (NIV) GOD SENDS HELP in the form of wise counselors to strengthen our faith. Sometimes that resource is a friend who offers encouragement at just the rig

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

THIS MORNING I WOKE UP to crazy headlines—again. Foreign wars and carnage. Refugees clamoring for safe haven. Political strife. Financial difficulties. Undercurrents of discontentment. I have been feeling as if I should chuck my phone straight out th

American Outdoor Guide

1 min read

“I don’t belong to the ‘no-God’ or ‘no-use-for-God’ world,” Grover wrote in one of his letters to me. “I try to read the Scriptures every day and say my prayers three times every day, 365 days a year. Anyone who thinks I’d do that year after year if

MoneyWeek

1 min read

blog.acton.org Socialism is what Jesus would have wanted, say those who take Acts 4:31-5 as gospel. There it is recorded that the early church “had all things in common” and distribution was made “according as he had need”. The argument is fallacio

India Today

2 min read

An online image search could well make one think that Meghalaya is only a sum of its vistas, waterfalls and root bridges. Having lived in the state since 1980, documentary filmmaker, photographer and activist Tarun Bhartiya calls India’s touristy emp

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

WHEN TRAVELING THE BACKROADS OF North Carolina with a friend, we stopped at historical markers, adding time and enjoyment to the trip. Nearing our destination, we drove past a marker that read, “Pon Pon Chapel of Ease.” We looked at each other. My fr

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, one of my former students has been featured in a TV commercial promoting orthotic and prosthetic services. My first introduction to him was memorable for all the wrong reasons. As an elementary school librarian, I often re

JOY Magazine

2 min read

The Family sphere of influence has been under severe demonic attack for several generations. The Family is the cornerstone of society. When the original structure of God’s creation of families is altered, society begins to change exponentially. Troub

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

I MET MARGARET B. AT a mission hospital in Nepal in the eighties. By that time, she’d already served thirty years as a trained midwife. She was old enough to be my mother, yet she became my dear friend. Her love for people was one of the characterist

60 Days of Prayer

1 min read

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. NUMBERS 33:55 (NIV) THE THINGS IN your life that

Literary Hub

3 min read

Hyacinth of Caeserea (Cappadocia, d. c. 120) In prison, the only food he was given was meat that had been consecrated to idols, which he refused to eat, and he starved to death. The jailers saw him comforted by angels. He was twelve. Hyacinth of Port